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Man In Black

This is my first attempt at creating a character in Zbrush, so any comments will be awesome The character I've been working on is this guy from Deus Ex. A quick summary of the character: Augmented (through drugs / physical conditioning) government agent who also has Albinism (but the hair is dyed black). This character is meant to be slightly unnerving, as if they have something strange or unsettling about them but you just can't put your finger on what..

So far I've roughed in the clothes, tie, collar, shoes etc but haven't detailed them. Once I pose the character (Zsphere rig) I'll sculpt the folds in the cloth on the suit, probably creating some asymmetrical points there. I still have to add the hair, finish painting the hands, and do the eyes.

So, personally I'm not sure how I've done so far. I'm pretty excited as this is the furthest I've ever gone with a project, but I feel I'm making a lot of mistakes. For example the skin tone, should it be paler to match the albinism the character has, or darker / bluer tones to match the original? Or did I fluke it and get it right? Is the face shape anything like the original? I played around with the shape quite a bit but I still don't think it looks that much like the blocky original face shape. The glasses also seem a little weird being perfectly unified in their transparency, maybe some post processing to add reflections etc could help? Also any tips on how to detail the suit (materials to use, how to sculpt fabric details (looked for some alphas but nothing brilliant so far)? Any other comments, crits, pro tips?

Thanks for looking and any comments, no matter how brutal will be good. (Also this is my first post, I typed this up before but lost the tab so if I accidentally submitted this twice my bad)

Welcome to ZbrushCentral buddy
Definently fantastic start, if this is your first attempt in zBrush!
You are definently on the right track with the character, still having some
facial anatomical problems, but I would be pleased if I had such a first attempt in ZBrush.
The shape of the bodys character and the proportion look good mate, can't really say anthing about anatomy there^^
Really looking forward seeing your progress and will definently keep an eye on your work and doodles!
Would recommened you to study alot anatomy and maybe setting up a account on zbw
Best regards and happy sculpting
- Kenny

Hm really? Why no love for png? The dialogue in the Insert Image tool says it's an allowed file format so that probably needs an update.

Thanks for the tips Kenny, I definitely feel the face needs some sculpting work, I might try moving the chin/jaw back slightly. I'll also add the eyes in today I think. Then once I figure out how to do hair I can pose and sculpt the clothes.

Here's an update, haven't spent much time on this (lazy etc etc) but anyway:

Ease up on the SSS? I just used the ToyPlastic material for the eyes, is there something better to start with or should I just tweak the ToyPlastic? I guess how you do it is mostly personal preference but just looking for general pointers.

Firstly, I know the collar clips (and is, in general, terrible) so I need to fix that, but I'm having trouble doing it and not making it.. well, terrible. Still haven't gotten around to redoing the glasses either. I'm thinking once those two important things are done I'll give it a quick zsphere rig, pose, sculpt folds in clothes..

I also tested blue lighting (To match the original Deus Ex vibe) and it worked quite well, however the red tones from the SSS had to be dramatically lowered.

Questions: In some professional renders I see, clothes will have the tiny fibers on them that just looks quite incredible, the best example I can think of is this: http://wallpaperswide.com/download/t...-2560x1440.jpg
See on his right shoulder? How is that done exactly, post processing?

Any recommended tutorials for clothes, since my progress so far is kinda crap? For memory there are a few on Gnomon..

Hi! Nice model! I think you made some excellent observations.
For facial anatomy, check the area on the side of the face in front of the ear. I think it should probably be pushed in a bit more there. And maybe sharper definition on the cheek bones would help the character(? just an idea)

Clothes. Tricky eh? I'd like to see some more tutorials on it too. One thing I would like to point out is that the collar of the shirt should rise up at the back to become parallel with the neck. It seems to be lying too flat. The same thing should also happen (but to a lesser degree) with the jacket's collar, but it does depend on the jacket style. Here's a page with some pics to illustrate what I mean:http://www.eawedding.com/groom-suits...n-suit-jacket/

I think you did a really fantastic job with the skin tone. You have quite a waxy finish on the skin, which, looking at some pics, seems to be a trait of albinism In the pictures I saw on google, often the lips seem to be quite distinctly red...

While I was playing with fibermesh settings I did find something that was very interesting and looked rather like fuzzies. I bumped up the NoV ('Direction variations', next to gravity), after having increased the segments a bit. Here's a quick screen grab of some hasty settings (with a BPR in the viewport):
(Oh you can't see the most important setting value! NoV is at 0.25)

Thankyou for that! I gave the fibers a try and it worked quite well, although I feel I didn't use the material properly (Ideally you wouldn't see them against the suit, only on the border / edges where the model meets the background. I couldn't seem to get them transparent though for this to happen)

Quick comments: Facial anatomy still a bit off, jaw/chin and cheek area mid need a bit of tweaking. Still need to figure out how I will remake the glasses.

Here's the latest render, with AA this time:
I played around with the collar and lapel too, making them horizontal-ish at the back like you said, the clothing link was handy too Also made the lips slightly warmer, strange that they're so pale in the reference. Eh not that important. And I re-did the eyebrows and hair. I remember there was a method for binding Ztools to a mesh so you could pose the body and all the subtools would correctly follow, although I can't seem to remember what that method was called... involved using the transpose line so I might find it in the documentation under that.

Looking good! The face is better for the changes. The general proportions look good, but the angle of the cheekbone is too steep. It should meet the ear just above the level of the ear hole (the zygomatic arch passes just above the auditory meatus...As it happens, I'm studying exactly that anatomy right now).
I think you picked it up already, but the angle of the jaw is a bit gentle and feminine. Could be made more angular I think.

The shirt and jacket collars are looking better. Still a little convex as it comes down toward the shoulder perhaps.

Well there is a definite limit to the advice I can give about the fuzzies; I have zero experience with that stuff. But, try turning off BPR shadows in Display Properties if you didn't already... Fuzzies etc. should just be a finish touch, though, so you've got time to experiment.

I'd go with shadowbox for the glasses if it were me.

You want to use the Transpose Master plugin for posing all the subtools together. Good luck with it. It's a bit tricky!

Excellent point about the zygomatic arch, fixed (I hope!). In this render there are two obvious problems one being the hair SOMEHOW got messed a little which I didn't pickup at first. I think I will re do the hair anyway to give it more height before it gets groomed back, I think I will need to up the segments from default for this? The second things wrong is the glasses, which are yet to be redone.

I was even able to quickly add thread through the buttonholes thanks to the curvetube brush and symmetry. So awesome. Can even use noisemaker on the thread but no one's ever going to see that.

Not sure if the 'default' pose to match the original is any good or if I should go for something more dramatic. Don't have a gun for him to hold though

Looks like you've made some good progress!
The hair is certainly better than before, and the face is looking pretty sweet, although the eyes are maybe a little squinty.
I see you've pulled the jacket down to be level with the plams of the hands, but it looks like you need to pull the front down too so that it's straight around (maybe you pulled the sides and back down a tiny bit too far..?) Also the lapels are curving; looks to me like they should be straighter.

Maybe there's also something off with the proportions of the body, but I can't quite put my finger on it. Perhaps the legs are a little short and the calves/feet a little narrow. I'm not sure, but maybe it's something you wanna check before you go further...

With fibermesh, you can see on the hair at the roots, it looks quite thin. Not sure why that is, maybe I had some thickness variations on or something.

New glasses are alright, although the angle of the temple is quite steep. I might have to change that as it looks quite weird. Anyway made a bunch of changes, hoping to finish this off soon. There are lots of things I keep seeing that I'd like to change, re do or fix, but really I'll never finish if I keep going this way. I've spent a long time on it, and while that isn't a bad thing itself I feel I'm not being very productive. I can always come back down the track too.

So, I hope to produce a final render soon, once the last major few things are sorted. Thanks everyone for your comments so far, every suggestion and tip has made this a better model. Advice for a beginner really makes a huge difference.

Fixed the glasses angle, although I'm thinking the material for the frame of the glasses could be a bit more specular, might tweak toyplastic shader. Also might smooth some of the edges on the glasses.

I'm wondering if I should hide the lenses and do them in photoshop. That way I can get the eyes to stand out more, have more control over the transparency etc. Also fixed the Tattoo to make it just visible (fan service at its best)

Also tested a render using a HDRI image + lightcap, which was pretty cool but took AGES to render (I think the 17 lights + SSS killed it :P) and there isn't really a fitting HDRI image for this dude. Which is why I'm wondering:

IF I could get a high res screen shot from in game of Deus Ex, could I successfully use that for a render background? I'll have to read up on how these things work. If I'd have to get a 360degree image inside unreal engine 1 then it's probably hopeless :P

(I'm falling into the infinite "I'll just change these few more things" trap again D: )

I'm really torn between calling it done or changing a bunch of things. I'd like to make him look older, try another style of glasses (closer to the concept) and remake the lapel to actually look like a lapel, but that would take awhile. I might call it done for now and revisit at some point in the future when my skills have improved.